Coopetition
Coopetition or cooperation competition , also co-competition , describes the duality of competition and cooperation in markets. Coopetition is from the English terms cooperation (cooperation) and competition (competition) composite portmanteau . The founder of the network software manufacturer Novell Raymond Noorda is named as the originator of the term (Brandenburger / Nalebuff 1997).
concept
Coopetition describes market phenomena in which there is a duality of cooperation and competition and influences the actions of market participants without them explicitly cooperating.
Such systems are mathematically described in game theory as non- zero-sum games . This was first described in 1928 by John von Neumann and in 1944 together with Oskar Morgenstern in the book “Game Theory and Economic Behavior” (Theory of Games and Economic Behavior).
In 1950, the US mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr. proposed the concept of the Nash equilibrium , which is also suitable for the non-zero-sum situation described by the concept of coopetition. Under certain conditions, it can be represented as a Nash equilibrium that competitors can achieve an advantage together, even without having made an explicit agreement in the sense of a cartel .
A special case of these situations is the targeted, organized cooperation on the same value-added level (horizontal cooperation), while the cooperation partners compete with one another on the market for the end product. Cooperation is mostly in the areas of " research and development " or " production ", while in the other areas the companies remain in their role as independent competitors and appear on the market.
The two American professors Adam Brandenburger (Stern Business School) and Barry Nalebuff (Yale School of Business) applied the basic idea of coopetition to the practice of business life in their monograph of the same name and developed it into a complete system. The method they have developed describes five starting points that can be used in business practice in order to achieve solutions with business partners (including competitors) that put everyone in a better position than with naive competition. Ideally, these are win-win situations, but coopetition also applies to cases that lie “between” zero-sum games and win-win situations.
meaning
The principle of coopetition is particularly important for modern industries. The monograph Coopetition by Brandenburger / Nalebuff has therefore met with great interest worldwide and has since been translated into fifteen languages. Presenting it through case studies and without the use of math has made the book Coopetition one of the most widely read books on game theory in the world.
Coopetition is a practical application of so-called mechanism design theory , for which the 2007 Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded.
Examples
Even the industry giant Microsoft has abandoned its original strategy of confronting open source since 2007. The cooperation with the Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a prime example of coopetition. Business open source for Windows is aggressively promoted and certified so as not to maneuver into an outsider position again. The company even had its own open source licenses examined by OSI. In October 2007, the Microsoft Public License (Ms-PL) and the Microsoft Reciprocal License (Ms-RL) were recognized by the OSI as open source licenses. According to a report from Heise Verlag, other licenses that disclose the source code and run under the name Shared Source do not meet the OSI's open source definition.
Another example is the temporary cooperation between the VW group and Ford . The jointly developed vehicle was sold separately by VW under the product names VW Sharan and Seat Alhambra and by Ford under the name Ford Galaxy .
See also
literature
- Ricarda B. Bouncken, Johanna Gast, Sascha Kraus, Marcel Bogers: Coopetition: a systematic review, synthesis, and future research directions . Review of Managerial Science, 2015.
- Barry J. Nalebuff, Adam M. Brandenburger: Coopetition: competing cooperatively - with game theory to business success. Rieck, Eschborn 2008, ISBN 3-924043-94-9 ; First edition of the engl. Originals: Co-opetition , Currency Doubleday, New York 1996.
- Stephan A. Jansen (Ed.): Competition and cooperation: interdisciplinary approaches to the theory of co-opetition . Metropolis-Verl., Marburg 2000. 254 pp. ISBN 3-89518-309-1
- Miriam M. Wilhelm: Managing coopetition through horizontal supply chain relations: Linking dyadic and network levels of analysis. In: Journal of Operations Management , Volume 29, No. 7-8, 2011, doi: 10.1016 / j.jom.2011.03.003
Web links
swell
- ^ Barry J. Nalebuff, Adam M. Brandenburger: Co-opetition: Competitive and coorperative business strategies for the digital economy . In: Strategy & Leadership . tape 25 , no. 6 , 1997, pp. 28-33 .
- ↑ Microsoft's open source strategy (heise open August 2, 2007)
- ↑ To certify business open source for Windows
- ↑ heise news: Microsoft has real open source (October 16, 2007)